Lew Wallace made the most ambitious effort of any New Mexico governor to reform our state’s errant political ways but famously conceded, “Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.”
Wallace was not just a territorial governor from 1878 to 1881. He was also one of the most celebrated novelists of his time due to the success of his historical epic, Ben-Hur. Before he was a governor or a novelist, however, he was a major general in the Union Army during the Civil War, where he became an arch-foe of his boss, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
Wallace served under Grant at the 1862 Battle of Shiloh, the first of the great bloodlettings of the Civil War. Afterwards, they argued over who was to blame for thousands of needless deaths, and Grant got the better of the argument. Because he did, his reputation survived and he went on to serve two terms as President of the United States. A new book by Kevin Getchell of Rio Rancho, Scapegoat of Shiloh: The Distortion of Lew Wallace’s Record by U.S. Grant (McFarland, 278 pages), uses painstaking detective work, some new documents and a few clever guesses to try and demonstrate that Grant, not Wallace, is to blame for “the shame of Shiloh.”
Shiloh was a monumental battle. When the battle began on April 6, 1862, more than 111,000 soldiers of both armies were encamped on the banks of the Tennessee River, creating a city with a population comparable to the city of Chicago. When the battle ended two days later, 24,000 of those soldiers were dead, wounded or missing.
Before dawn on the first day, the Confederates launched a surprise attack that inflicted tremendous damage on the Union force and nearly destroyed its six divisions. One of those divisions, commanded by Wallace, had been held in reserve until finally ordered to join the battle several hours after the shooting began. It did so, however, so belatedly that it did not fight until the second day, when the Union Army recovered and forced the Confederates to retreat, leaving the North in control of most of Tennessee.
The issue between Grant and Wallace was why did Wallace’s division join the battle so late and what were the consequences of the decisions that Wallace and Grant made. To oversimplify a complex argument, Grant said that Wallace was dilatory and took the wrong road in defiance of his orders. Wallace argues that the division marched expeditiously, took the best road available and got there as soon as possible given the late hour of the order.
Getchell maintains, however, that the real issue was the order that Grant gave Wallace, or more precisely the officer chosen to deliver the order. Either Grant personally or his adjutant acting in Grant’s name chose Capt. A. S. Baxter, Grant’s quartermaster, as the messenger. The quartermaster’s job was to deliver arms, ammunition and supplies to the troops, but in Baxter’s absence, many of the Northern units ran out of ammunition and were destroyed by the advancing Confederates. Thus it is Getchell’s case that the real incompetence at Shiloh was Grant’s incomprehensible decision to use this irreplaceable officer as a mere messenger.
Grant’s charge against Wallace tarnished his military career and affected him throughout his life. Getchell believes the novel “Ben-Hur” was really an attempt by Wallace to deal with the enduring shame he felt as the man labeled the culprit in the bloody battle.
Getchell sees the battle itself as having echoing ramifications down through the years. A member of his own family fought there for the Confederacy, and he grew up with stories of the battle handed down as part of his Southern heritage. He cites new scientific work showing that traumatic episodes can be biologically implanted in future generations, and thus links his own PTSD and explosions of “inexplicable anger” to the heritage of Shiloh.
That scientific theory aside, Getchell became what he calls a “militant pacifist.” He describes the awful feeling of walking the beautiful green meadows of the Shiloh battlefield and recalling the words of the book of Genesis: “The voices of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” For Kevin Getchell, it is clear that they still do.
Editor's note: A previous version stated in error that Wallace's governorship was from 1848-1851. He governored from 1878-1881.
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